Mourning Jewellery

Mourning Jewellery

These days people express their grief often through videos, photos and social media updates. However, it is of course not so in every country nor if we go back in time.

Let us view an interesting part of history, back in the Victorian era there was a tradition of using mourning jewellery.There was a strong set of rules attached to it. In which even the choice of material was metaphorical, as each of them represented an idea. For example enamel meaning that the one who passed away was a woman who was not married and still a virgin.

The mourning jewellery therefore had a lot of social meaning. In addition to the meaningful material use, it was often even made of human hair. For example a pendant that had human hair in it, or hair that had been braided to be a bracelet.

Mourning jewellery went out of fashion with the death of Queen Victoria in 1901. These days it being an important part of history and a collector’s item but not used as social sign anymore.

Here below is a beautiful video by McTearsTV, showing some of the jewellery.